


Lifeline

by sunaddicted



Series: Tumblr Prompts 2018 [8]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-SPECTRE, References to Depression, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 04:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14229612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunaddicted/pseuds/sunaddicted
Summary: James kept the time with the raising and falling of the other man's chest.





	Lifeline

**Author's Note:**

> @azure7539arts asked for 00q+the moment when reality starts to make sense again - sorry for the abuse of metaphors

_Lifeline_

He was drowning.

Choking.

Slowly sinking to the silky sands, dragged to the bottom by invisible weights he couldn't cut off.

And the light became green, the deeper he went: it would disappear at some point, eaten away by too much water between the eye and the sun.

It wasn't the first rough patch he went through: he has drowned plenty of times and resurrected himself just as many - a necromancer playing a dangerous game with Death.

James feared that the day he would lose his footing and trip during that waltz had come; he couldn't feel it in himself, the burning flame that had kept him alive and soldiering on for so long - even in the worst moments, he had been able to find embers that only had needed nurturing in order to roar back to life.

But he had gone dark inside, the empty spaces between his ribs teemed with monsters that eagerly gnawed at his bones - termites seeking to destroy the skeleton and make him crumble to dust.

He was lost, running out of time: he had just enough to disappear in a blaze of glory, set himself on fire for the sake of a legacy people would remember him by.

That was what he had left: no family, no friends.

Just James Bond and his licence to kill, shoulders squared off to face the enemy even if he was bleeding - even if he was being eaten alive from the inside.

That was why he had come back, the explosion seared in his retinas while he traded barbs with a young thing in the middle of an art gallery, centuries of beauty looking down upon them.

James had ignored the spark back then, dismissed it as the last twitch of a cooling corpse: he had seen his depths while he lay on a beach on the other side of the world, seeking warmth in a beautiful woman's embrace who didn't know him as he drank away the last of his spirit.

James had ignored it the following five, ten, one hundred times.

Refused to acknowledge that for the first time since he had lost his childhood to an hiking accident gone wrong, there was someone who could save him when he couldn't do it himself.

Afraid to get hurt.

Afraid of hurting _him_.

So, he stole a car. Left behind himself only a bottle of champagne and the last relic of a past life locked up in the depths of MI6.

Madeline didn't send sparks through his system, didn't make his nerve endings twitch back to life; whatever it was that made Q so special, it didn't dwell in her insides and he was drowning again, drinking himself to death again, closing off again as he contemplated the darkness awaiting him.

But unlike the last time, James knew that he didn't have to do all the work himself if he wanted to swim back to the surface: he knew that there was someone strong enough to hold a line for him even when he would inevitably try to tug at it and drag Q down with him - it was in his nature, resisting help.

Shying away from happiness.

"You're leaving me" Madeline murmured the last night of their life together, one of her fingers pressed to his lips "I always knew you would" she added, voice soft.

James held her when she turned around and clicked the light off, genuinely sorry for having hurt her: he was kind, left with his bags before she could wake up and be forced through stilted and painful goodbyes.

He would send her a postcard once he was back in London, hoping she'd know it meant that he had cared about her - that he might have loved her if he hadn't been so broken and already found his saviour in a man who cracked terrible jokes and let him pet his cats when he broke into his flat, explanations never asked and tea always warm.

The cats welcomed him with lamenting mews, reproaching him for staying away for so long. James knelt down to scratch at them, trying to soothe them before they could wake Q up: the house was dark but the keys were in the empty fishbowl by the entry hall; James had taken up the nasty habit of tossing in there bits and pieces from his missions - seashells, stones, a button that had come off of an irreparably ruined shirt, a bullet that had almost killed him faster than the darkness inside himself.

"You're back"

With Q's voice came the light - James wanted to chuckle at how metaphorical that was even as he looked up at the other man and desperately tried to read his tired features, heart fluttering desperately as he waited.

And waited.

Q blinked down at him.

James kept the time with the raising and falling of the other man's chest.

"Come on, let's go to bed: you're going to have to fill in a lot of paperwork tomorrow"

He took the hand offered to him, let himself be helped up to his feet and led into the sanctuary of Q's bedroom.

James was swimming.

Breathing.

Slowly making his way towards the sun, fresh air kissing his wet face.

And Q was holding him, their legs kicking the water together.

The world finally made sense. 


End file.
